Friday, December 19, 2014

Home for the Holidays

I open my bedroom door and he practically falls in,
plastered as flat to the door as a very fluffy, very large and increasingly fat
cat can be. His beloved owner – the Intrepid Junior Blogger – has spent the
night at a friend’s house and he has been denied his usual spot at the foot of
her bed to sleep, and he is clearly quite lonely. I scoop him up (a challenge
given his increasing girth) and hear snuffly purrs emanating loudly from his
chest as he burrows his head into me. He is Smaug, the SPCA adoptee who joined
our house this fall, and he is home for the holidays.

I write a lot about our pets, I suppose, the menagerie that
has come to be known as the Triple M Zoo. Some of the pets, like Sirius Black
Cat, have achieved some degree of local fame, with complete strangers asking me
how SBC is and what trouble he has gotteninto recently. I have always lived a life with animals, grew up with
cats and always felt best when there was a non-human creature in my home, but
it is in recent years that we have had a pet explosion in our house, with Smaug
being the most recent addition.

This past week the IJB went online and found a photo of
Smaug from when he first arrived at the Fort McMurray SPCA. While I recognized
the face I must admit the photo made me cry, because the soft affectionate cat
we have welcomed into our hearts and home looks so scared in it, his eyes wide
open with fear. He was found wandering as a stray and I cannot imagine a cat
less suited to such a life, as Smaug (or Fitzsimmons as they called him at the
SPCA) is a scaredy-cat of the worst kind, terrified of the dog, the vacuum and
even large cardboard items. Unlike Sirius, who has an adventurous side and a wild
streak, Smaug aspires to nothing more than a soft fuzzy blanket, a constantly
refilled food bowl and a human to love. I can only imagine how scared he was
when he was on the streets, afraid and alone. He is not the kind of cat to
welcome solitude, and not the kind to enjoy the sort of adventures Sirius longs
for.

After having adopted three pets from the SPCA I know a few
things now. I know I will never again purchase a pet from a breeder or a store,
as there are so many loving animals just waiting for their forever home. I know
that the pets there came in every shape and size and personality, and that
while Sirius Black and Smaug are as different as can be in looks and
temperament they have become brothers in spirit who tussle and fight and groom and
often fall asleep together in a heap of black and orange and white fur and paws
and whiskers.

I don’t know how they came to be at the SPCA, Sirius and
Smaug and River, their ferret SPCA companion, but I know that they all were
likely owned before and that the people who abandoned them were too callous to
recognize the incredible spirit of the animals they rejected. When I cuddle
Smaug and hear his purrs and feel his love, this kind of all-encompassing love
only a feline can project, I feel sorry for the humans who owned him before and
who did not treasure and value his trust and love as we do.

Sometimes, late at night when I cannot sleep, I will creep
down into the IJB’s room to check on her. At fifteen she does not need these
checks, I know, but I find it comforting to find her there as I know one day,
far too soon, that bed will be empty as she moves on in her life. But for now I
find her there, cuddled under heaps of blankets and with two cats asleep on top
of her, blinking at me with bleary eyes as I creep in.

This morning, though, in her absence I cuddled Smaug to me
as Sirius began his morning with a stretch and sharp-toothed yawn. I stroked
his downy soft fur and listened to his purr, and I reflected on the fact that
this is his first Christmas with us. Smaug is home for the holidays – and forever.

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